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| ESPN Exec VP & Exec Editor John Walsh |
During JOHN WALSH's 17-year tenure, ESPN has won 25 Cable ACE Awards and 28 Sports Emmys. As Exec VP & Exec Editor of ESPN Inc., Walsh is responsible for all studio news and informational programming and is involved in the creative development of a variety of projects. Walsh has a rich and diverse background in journalism: founding editor of Inside Sports, managing editor of U.S. News & World Report and Rolling Stone, sports editor of Newsday, an editor at the Washington Post Style section, and a consultant for Esquire, Vanity Fair and the New York Times. He has also been the editor of three sports books, including "The Heisman: A Symbol of Excellence." Walsh spoke recently with SportsBusiness Journal N.Y. bureau chief Jerry Kavanagh.
Question: You were the editor at Inside Sports, which had the first interview with PRESIDENT REAGAN 14 days after he took office in 1981.
Walsh: This is the second day in a row this has come up. Yes, it was. There was a lot of effort put in to get it. It was MARK SHIELDS. He wrote about it last week [June 6].
Q: It's been a long list of accomplishments for you: Newsday, Rolling Stone, Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, ESPN and so on. Chesterton wrote, "I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite." To what do you attribute your success?
Walsh: Listening's a part of it. I don't know that I've really taken Chesterton's advice and taken a lot of left turns once I've heard the advice. But I've made it a trademark that I'm always happy to listen; I know that I learn from listening. And I do think that you do have to think about things -- and I probably overthought more things than I should have in my life -- and then try to make the best possible decision. A lot of the good fortune I've had is to be associated with great companies that were forward thinking and gave me autonomy. A lot of it's good timing. I learned about myself early on that I loved new things, I loved change. And I was forced to change. For the first 21 years of my alleged adult life, I changed jobs a lot. When I came to ESPN, I hadn't held a single job for more than three years and all of the jobs I had were start-ups or repositionings or new products or new publications. I was at Newsday when they started a Sunday paper. I was at Rolling Stone when we were going beyond music into politics and pop culture. I helped to launch Inside Sports. So, I did an awful lot of different things. But the key to everything was to kind of create something new and different. I didn't realize it and I didn't know it when I came to ESPN, but ESPN has been the perfect home for 17 years because all they do is change and create new things. That's what we do here.
Q: You were a print journalist first, where nothing much got in the way of the story. Is there a danger now of the main story being obscured by the details and the sideshows?
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| Walsh Says Media Has Invented
More Distractions And Sidebars |
Walsh: I don't think there's a danger where we're missing the main point. I think that in the A.D.D. world we live in, we have invented many more distractions, many more sidebars, many more detours that have the potential to be misleading at times. So, I don't think that people take their eye off the ball or veer away too much from what the central point of what the story is. I mean, everybody kind of knows where the real deal is, and I think that the media today ... that there are a lot of things that you could find that may be disconcerting or can say are taking a step backward here or there. But there are just as many things you can say we're pushing forward and we're trying new things and there's a lot of good work being done out there. The most disturbing things that are happening are happening in print. The stuff that happened in USA Today, in the New York Times.
Q: It's interesting that the ESPN acronym places the word "Entertainment" ahead of "Sports Programming Network." Was that an early recognition of the importance of entertainment and sports?
Walsh: ESPN is probably the worst name you could possibly have for a company. If you had to name a company, you wouldn't go out and say, "Well, let's call it ESPN." How in the world it was decided that these four letters would be put together is an unbelievable credit to the people from the beginning who made ESPN what it is today. There was a point in history when no one could tell you what ESPN stood for. So, the company decided it would be no words; it would just be four letters. And now recently, because we have gone into the entertainment business, we have revived the definition, the words, behind the letters. We now have explanations for what they are.
Q: It's too late to change the name now.
Walsh: It was too late to change it in 1983 or '84. You wouldn't go out and name something ESPN, would you? But there are people out there who are naming their children "ESPN."
Q: Is showtime an inextricable part of sports?
Walsh: Well, sports are entertainment. Sports have always meant to be a leisure activity. Anybody who follows sports will tell you it's an enjoyable distraction from the otherwise woeful news of the day. You don't have to read about the economy. You don't have to check about national security. But more and more, as sports become intertwined with American culture and the American life, security at sporting events becomes an issue. But I think that the main definition of sports is that they're entertainment -- which is probably the reason that they [ESPN] put that "E" ... where they said "entertainment."
Q: FRANK DEFORD said that ever since sports went on TV, more people are familiar with it. He also said that sportswriters are more and more handmaidens of television. "We're really not allowed to write a whole lot about things that don't appear on television," he said.
Walsh: I love Frank. I think Frank is one of the real sports media geniuses. And Frank has now transformed himself to being very good on television. I don't think he's quite as good on television as he is when he writes great articles. But since television broadcasts every major sporting event, it's inevitable. What I do think is interesting is that the televising of sporting events, and in the world of instantaneous news and results, it is a much more challenging assignment for people in print to cover those events in a way that complements what their readers have seen on television. And some do it much better than others.
Q: Does the business of sport threaten to overwhelm the games?
Walsh: I think that people who follow sports get really tired of the coverage of business at times because it can deflect interest away from sports. The negotiations that go on between leagues and players [and] the harm that they do to the people who actually pay their salaries, [that] is something that ... I don't think the magnitude of that is understood.
Q: What in sports would you not miss if it were done away with tomorrow?
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| Walsh Sounds Like He Might Be
A Big Fan Of Charles Barkley |
Walsh: The cliched, robot-like responses to questions by athletes, coaches and owners and everybody in sports. That would be right up there.
Q: During World War II, FDR urged COMMISSIONER LANDIS to keep baseball going as a way to keep people's minds off the terrible events of the day. PAT WILLIAMS of the Orlando Magic said that the significance of sports in this country was brought out after September 11. What impact did 9/11 have on sports coverage?
Walsh: I saw a whole body of research yesterday that proved President Roosevelt and Pat Williams were sage philosophers. It showed how important sports are to the spirit of our country. There is something about the playing of team games that gives people a good feeling about where they live and what they do and the notion that there can be some healing and recovery attached to the playing of the games, which I never thought was as significant as I've now come to believe that it is.
Q: Is there a sports business story or angle that you will continue to watch closely over the next few months?
Walsh: I think the most important story will be the emergence of LEBRON JAMES. I think it is a fascinating story when somebody who essentially had to fight to get a roof over his head when he was younger has emerged as this $100 million industry. And from all observers, he has delivered in his first year as an 18-year-old professional everything that's been expected of him. I'm fascinated to see what happens. Can you imagine going from the kind of poverty and difficult struggles that he's had to all of a sudden be in the top 1% of income in the country? What a transition!
Q: The Chicago Tribune recently ranked the top magazines. What are your top five?
Walsh: I have to say ESPN The Magazine first, don't I? I read a lot of magazines. I love the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly. I think Esquire has really come back in the last few years and, to me, has become a must read. I think what's happened early on at New York magazine, under the direction of ADAM MOSS, shows a great deal of promise. Newsweek is something I always check in on. It really is hard to keep up. I always have stacks of magazines around. And I'm a homer for Connecticut magazine.
Q: What are you reading?
Walsh: I just finished "Big Russ and Me." I've been fighting my way to finish "Liar's Poker." I had read [Michael Lewis'] "Moneyball," and "The New New Thing." I have two books I'm opening up and getting into: Pete Dexter's "Train" and Maureen Orth's collection of her Vanity Fair profiles, "The Importance of Being Famous."
Q: Favorite sportswriter?
Walsh: I can't answer that because I've known too many. But I do want to say one thing. RALPH WILEY's work has been on my mind a lot because of his tragic passing. So, I've been rereading Ralph's material, and what he's done the last four years for us has been nothing short of spectacular on the Internet.
Q: What's the best thing about working in sports?
Walsh: The best thing about working in sports at ESPN is that there is a range of different possibilities every day. There are different mediums. There are different types of stories. You can come to work and be talking about KOBE BRYANT on the court and his spectacular play, or the Kobe Bryant fall from grace off the court, which is an interesting, dramatic story as well. There is laughter and tears, all kinds of emotional stories that come about on a daily basis. What's happened in sports in the last quarter-century has been so overwhelmingly breathtaking and widespread that sports has come to represent life in America and the range of experiences, and the range of stories to cover is pretty astonishing.
Q: What is the biggest challenge in your position?
Walsh: Whatever the next new new thing is. And sometimes I don't know what it is, whether it's a new show, a new movie, a new program, a new segment for "SportsCenter." It keeps you thinking all the time. I'm working on or associated with four or five things at once usually. I never know. I might get an e-mail from a producer who's doing an interview with an athlete or an owner and he wants to know if I have any good questions. Or I might get a note about a show: about changes in a show or about a new show. It's the variety of new things that really is the challenge for me.
Q: Where would sports be without advertising?
Walsh: It would be a little less well off. People would make a little less money. I don't know. Advertising at its best inspires creativity. Advertising at its worst gets in the way of doing your job.
Q: Favorite sporting event?
Walsh: Any one of my son's or daughter's games.
Q: What's a typical day off like?
Walsh: A lot of reading. Maybe a movie. Watching TV. Spending time on the Internet. Having a couple of wonderful meals with my wife. Fairly predictable material.
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| Walsh Counts OutKast As One Of
His Favorite Musical Groups |
Q: Favorite piece of music?
Walsh: I worked at Rolling Stone, so I've always been a huge fan of music. My favorite band today is, of course, my son's rock-and-roll band, Bullfrog Tribute. But I run the gamut. I love OutKast. I like Eva Cassidy. I'll never get far away from Willie Nelson. Occasionally I'll go back and play some of the classic Kinky Friedman, whose band I was an intellectual groupie for in the mid-'70s.
Q: Favorite actress?
Walsh: Meryl Streep.
Q: Favorite movie?
Walsh: Martin Brest's first movie, "Hot Tomorrows." Anybody who's seen it will understand why it's great.
